REDISCOVERING MUSIC PT. 2

I’ve shared this video on random social media things before… but this is the video that started it all for me. It was the beginning of my hatred toward what is now most popular music.

Hold on, hold on… do I think some of the things in this video are ridiculous? Absolutely. But you know what I love the most about Cage and his compositions? The fact that if you took some of those ridiculous qualities seriously for just a brief moment, it would make you question everything you’ve ever believed to be true about what music is! Cage has taught me to listen to sound as music. Any sound. Cars passing by, the wind blowing, people talking. I’m not the only one he’s taught to think in this way… there were many before me, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when you think of your surroundings in this way, things become so much more beautiful. When music takes on a different meaning, what you’re able to create becomes LIMITLESS! Now THAT’S a revelation!

So… why does this make me hate popular (or pop) music? Well, it doesn’t really. Pop music made me hate pop music. And I don’t hate all of it. Far from it actually. But once I started thinking of things on such a broad scale, I began to realize what a small box I’ve been put in all of these years, and what a small box so many musicians have put themselves in. And for what? Success?? Yeah, probably. To become popular. I always tried to be something I wasn’t when I was in middle school. I tried to be like the popular kids. It only made girls think I was weird, and the guys think I was lame. It wasn’t until I became confident in who I was as an individual that I truly started to be liked, and in a way that made me feel fulfilled. People started coming to me because they wanted to be around me. They wanted to be around me because it made them feel good, because I was just treating them the way it came natural. Did everyone come to me? Not even close. But the ones that became my friends were satisfied, and in the same way, the people that I became friends with satisfied me… because they were comfortable with who they were. It was a natural connection.

I’m starting to embrace this mentality with music. STARTING TO. For many years I’ve tried to be me while still being what I thought people wanted me to be. Now, with music people sometimes want a very specific thing or sound, but I still believe that they come to me because they know that I’ll still make my own thing of it, while doing my best to fulfill the obligated guidelines. But when it comes to creating music just for the sake of creation, my world is now wide open, and that’s made me feel more alive and less judgmental toward myself than ever before. The music that I’ve created recently has been the most personal that I’ve ever done.

And all because John Cage had the balls to make music from a rubber duck on T.V. a bunch of years ago… hell yes.